React, etc. Tech Stack

The Modern JavaScript ecosystem has reached the point of maturity where some projects are becoming the de-facto standard. Build system veterans such as Grunt and Gulp were first challenged by Browserify to packaging files for distribution, but now WebPack is the norm. The Angular 2 CLI curiously used the SystemJS for loading modules.

Static HTML is a very safe method for hosting content with high performance and a high level of security. Static HTML obviously means generating a bunch of HTML files that will be served as is, without additional database or other tools.

A wave of functional programming is washing over the JavaScript ecosystem. This has made the development world polluted with terms that might sound alien to majority of developers used to programming with a bunch of loops with ifs and elses.

The WordPress plugin Insert PHP allows users to embed WordPress into posts and pages. The code is annotated with [insert_php] in the rich text editor and the code is executed upon loading of the page with the PHP eval function.

TypeScript is a language that builds ontop of standard JavaScript. It uses the familiar ECMAScript 6 syntax, but adds features to it. TypeScript is then transformed to plain JavaScript that is interpreted by browsers or other platforms capable of running JavaScript.

Aurelia is a contemporary front end framework spearheaded by Rob Eisenberg, a former Angular2 team member. The project aims to deliver a front end framework similar to Angular, but different in implementation. Unlike React.js, a view library with a rich ecosystem, Aurelia provides a full stack solution for web application development.

Laravel is a very popular PHP framework running on the server side. It's known for ease of use and complementary side projects such as the Homestead. Laravel is very opinionated, but so far it's been lacking a default choice for a front end JavaScript framework to enable it being a full stack framework.

Dan Abramov of Redux fame joined Facebook late in 2015. Since that he has continued work on interesting features and communicated actively on Twitter about React. Now he has worked on a command line tool that allows developers to bootstrap new React projects without drama.

The Norwegian browser vendor Opera was deemed to be acquired by a consortion of Chinese internet companies. In the latest news the company had not received regulatory approval from either Chinese or United States officials.

The WebUSB API provides a way to safely provide developers acces to USB devices over the web. The API is familiar to developers who have been using native USB libraries and shares the existing physical USB specifications.